Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (16 page)

Julia Chase’s notebook

When it comes to the business of matchmaking, Liam focuses with an attentiveness that invites you to spill your deepest truths. He leans in, crosses his legs in your direction, and touches your shoulder with the hand he drapes along the seat back. He writes notes in a leather-bound book whose heyday disappeared with the Dark Ages.

He insists there’s a method to his madness. “I must get at what’s quirky or difficult about the person for, ultimately, the people we’re most compatible with are those with whom our personal demons or weaknesses find the most solace. I think of it in terms of music taming the wild beast. A truly compatible and loving couple are each others’ music.”

Liam does have an eerie way of honing in on our fragile essentials. He’s insightful and kind with his petitioners.

More crap. I can’t concentrate, and I’m delirious with exhaustion. Today Andrew McCallum showed up on the plaza with a woman named Adrienne Meehan. The first thing she did was raise her sweet baby to Liam’s face for a kiss. I felt a tad jealous, I’m not sure why. Could be my maternal instinct kicked in, or, could be I’ll miss Andrew’s comfortable attentions. (What girl wouldn’t?) Could be I didn’t like Adrienne’s playfulness with Liam. Now, thinking about it, I’m uneasy.

• 30 •

Two hours after talking to Merrit in the hospital, Danny sat at his desk in the Garda station, enduring sidelong glances from the uniformed guards. No one had ventured so much as a fart in his presence. Danny’s men were out canvassing the partygoers as far as he knew, and to his relief, Clarkson was nowhere to be seen. He considered the stack of papers sitting in his in-box and rolled away from the desk.

Since Merrit was indisposed, he decided to tackle Ivan again. The little maggot was still holding back. Danny rang Connie O’Brien, who tried her best not to tell him where Ivan was holed up. Across the room, the door to the waiting area opened, disrupting the low-key buzz within their bullpen. Voices trailed into the room. At the sight of Clarkson and O’Neil hauling in Kevin, the room erupted in a louder buzz. Danny hung up on Connie.

Kevin wore handcuffs. He caught Danny’s eye and grimaced. “Long story.”

“Shut it.” Clarkson sounded harassed yet oddly content. “O’Neil, get him into an interview room.” He scanned the room, ignoring Danny. “Pickney, help out the men at Merrit’s flat. Need new evidence gathering. Make sure there are no mistakes. O’Toole, bring the landlady in. I want her statement all but embossed in gold.”

Clarkson strode toward the office that he used when he visited the Lisfenora station. No doubt to report to the O’Briens and to call the media in hopes of getting a quote in the papers.

While Clarkson was occupied, Danny visited the video monitoring room where O’Neil fiddled with the equipment. “Tell me in as few words as possible.”

“Breaking and entering, that’s what.”

“Ah, Christ.” It was a bloody epidemic. First Ivan, then Merrit and Marcus, now Kevin. “And?”

“And Clarkson’s happy to arrest him for that while he works up the homicide charge.”

“Don’t turn on the video yet, and keep an eye out for Clarkson.”

In the interview room, Kevin sat with one knee jangling and eyes closed. “What the holy hell did you do?” Danny said.

Kevin peeked at him with one eye and closed it again. “That something I meant to tell you in the hospital this morning? It’s a brilliant tale. Sometime in the wee hours of this morning, in a whiskey-induced attempt at genius, I broke the crime-scene tape and the flimsy lock on Merrit’s flat to seek a few answers on my own. Seemed like a sound idea at the time, but all I got for my efforts was a spiral notebook taped behind the headboard before I passed out on her bed. This morning Mrs. Sheedy rode me with her broom stick all the way into the plaza. The notebook is still in my truck if you want it. You know where the spare key is.”

“You daft prick.” Danny rubbed at his face, too exhausted to chide Kevin further. “I’ll see your truck gets home.”

The audio system hissed to life with O’Neil’s voice. “Clarkson.”

“Better go kiss his hairy arse,” Kevin muttered.

So Danny went, mindful of the tension spreading down his neck. In the corridor Clarkson stood rocking back and forth. All he needed was a hand tucked into a red coat to turn him Napoleonic. “You’re not to even sniff in Kevin Donellan’s direction, am I clear?”

“Yes, sir. You should know that the other suspect, Merrit Chase—”

“Speaking of Merrit Chase, get one of the officers not on festival duty to round her up so O’Neil can get her statement. Most of her belongings appear to still be in the flat. We need to know if anything went missing since you escorted her off the premises.”

Oh, there was something missing all right, and Danny would bet his last few pennies that Merrit wouldn’t mention the spiral notebook when she made her statement.

Danny stared at a cherry birthmark covering half of Clarkson’s hand and stretched for a neutral tone. “As I was about to say, Merrit Chase is in the hospital. She had a severe asthma attack.”

“Fine. Let me know when she’ll be up for questions. But that’s it. No interference out of you.” He stepped away, then paused. “By the way, her flat was clean. Nothing there to incriminate her.”

“Except for the inhaler I bagged yesterday.” Not to mention the notebook Kevin had found that might contain a few hints about what hid beneath Merrit’s calm demeanor.

Danny wonderd at his sanity even as his next words fell out of his mouth. “I’ll wager you on Kevin’s guilt. When it comes to light that Kevin isn’t guilty, you’ll forget any disciplinary action.”

Clarkson barked a laugh. “You’re playing with your career, you know that, don’t you?”

“So I’ve nothing to lose.”

“I can almost respect that if nothing else at the moment.”

With that, Clarkson disappeared into the monitoring room, leaving Danny to wonder if Marcus’s treatment expenses would have been better spent on a loony bin for himself.

• 31 •

Kevin’s pulse echoed against his eardrums. He resisted the urge to pace the interview room. He’d refused to talk, or even to call a solicitor, so Clarkson had left him to stew for the past few hours. Kevin reminded himself to neither avoid nor glare at the video camera lens.

Behind him, the door opened. “Donellan,” Clarkson said, “I’m allowing you a visitor. Hopefully she’ll talk you into calling your solicitor.”

“Kevin?” came the familiar, soft voice.

Emma approached and waited for him to invite her into a seat, for she was polite. Had always been, to the point she’d sent him a thank-you note for believing that Lonnie had raped her after Liam’s party last year.

“I heard,” she said. “News is already circulating. You were in that American woman’s flat—the one who dated Lonnie?” She shook her head, agitated. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”

With a vague sense of disquiet that had nothing to do with his current dilemma, Kevin motioned to a desk that sat along the wall in front of him. She didn’t meet his gaze until she’d settled herself, and then when she did, her careful expression cracked.

“I’m so sorry, this is my fault, and if not for me, you’d be fine.”

Kevin quieted his jouncing legs as a wave of regret washed over him. He remembered how many times she had hugged him only to have him yield for a stiff moment and then pull away.

“I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk this week. After the party, I thought—” She lapsed into silence, then tried again. “Don’t you remember?”

Kevin blinked. They’d chatted early in the evening—she’d stolen a sip out of his beer—but surely she wasn’t talking about that. “I was beyond plastered. Why? Did we talk later in the evening?”

Kevin could always tell when Emma was tired. Her left eyelid drooped. It also drooped when she was upset. Like now. But then he didn’t know what it meant to be raped and judged partially to blame by her fellow Lisfenorans, only to face the attention again a year later.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” She stood in a swift and graceful movement. “Just call me a class A screwup. Please call a solicitor, will you?”

She knocked and the door opened. Kevin jumped toward the door, knocking over his chair in the process, but he was too late to grab the knob before it clicked shut. “Shit,” he shouted. “Shit shit shit.” Then lower, “I’m sorry too.”

He stumbled back as the door reopened. Clarkson stepped inside.

“Congratulations, Romeo, you sent her away in tears.”

“You get your wank up on voyeurism?”

“Watch the tone. If you’re not going to call your own solicitor, we’ll have to wait for one from the court to arrive. Meanwhile, shall we talk anyhow?”

Hell no, Kevin knew better than that. He’d landed himself in trouble enough last year, supposing that honesty—“Sure I pummeled Lonnie after he raped Emma. Sure I was angry when I saw them together at Liam’s party, who wouldn’t be?”—would paint him in a better light.

Instead of talking, Kevin righted his chair and let himself sag with head on chest.

Liam Donellan’s journal

This evening at the Slanty Shanty Pub, Kate stared me down. All through my conversations with the shy, the lonely, the insecure, there she sat. Kate, she drained my energy what with her tilted lips and cocked head. I finally beckoned her, which was, of course, what she wanted, stalker that she is. She smelled of bruised apples, and she lowered herself to my side like a cat.

“You’d best scribble something, hadn’t you?” she said.

So I did:
Unmatchable
.

“I’m in a quandary about Merrit.”

No doubt
,
I wrote.

“It’s too crowded in your house.”

Indeed
,
I wrote. “Insightful,” said I.

What, I ask myself, is the solution to the current state of chaos? I must think carefully as I didn’t back in 1975. I must account for the unexpected as I didn’t that last evening within her royal Kilmoon’s shadowed embrace. What a fine night that was too. The remnants of the day’s sun and harvest on the breeze, and a moon big and bold near the horizon, lighting my way and shining off Kilmoon’s rock walls. Kilmoon shone like I’d never seen her, already prepared for me it seems now.

• 32 •

On Friday morning, Kate sat like a dutiful sister beside Merrit’s bed in the Internal Care Unit. She had only wanted to peek in at the waif, ask a question or two about her condition, and return to Lisfenora. All she’d had to do was tell the truth—novel, that—and mention their sisterhood. Thank Christ the waif was dead-asleep under the influence of narcotics. Kate had taken advantage of the nursing staff’s preoccupation with a patient in another room to pull up a chair.

The moonstone necklace that Merrit normally wore was missing, probably removed when she was admitted to the hospital. Kate opened the drawer in the bedside stand, but the necklace wasn’t there. Too bad. The precious gift from Merrit’s mother matched Kate’s eyes perfectly.

“Tough blow, your mom dying,” Kate said in a voice low enough not to wake Merrit. “But at least you knew her. As for me, when I was ten, my adoptive parents found themselves pregnant. Talk about a surprise. From then on, it was the ugly-stepchild syndrome. I was the free nanny and housekeeper. That’s it, pretty simple really.”

Except that it was never that simple. She’d loved her parents to distraction and gladly played their serving wench in hopes they’d return her love. She might not have existed anymore, not truly. The day she realized this was the day she realized she could depend only on herself. Self-sufficiency was her catchword. For good, for ill, it didn’t matter. She preferred herself as she was now to the groveling puke of a girl she once was.

Merrit snuffled and rolled toward the wall. Kate tensed until Merrit’s even breathing resumed. Best to leave. She felt too much like the little puke girl in this place, just another hushed voice no one heard.

Instead, Kate settled deeper into her chair. The movement was a reflex remembered from childhood. She had too much experience with medical settings and their antiseptically controlled chaos. Almost a second home, in some ways. All those hours, waiting, simmering.

She found herself continuing her one-sided conversation with the waif.

***

Merrit rolled onto her back and stared at the cracked ceiling tiles after Kate departed. Kate’s low voice and her words were corrosive. They’d eaten away at Merrit while she pretended to sleep. A portly nurse with pink lipstick and two orderlies appeared just as Merrit pressed the call button.

Merrit cleared her throat against foul slime stuck to the back of her tongue. “Can I have a Percocet or whatever you give out here?”

“Are you in pain?”

Yes. The worst. “Well—”

“Then no.” She rattled the IV drip. “Nice to have visitors, at least when you’re awake. Like those two handsome men yesterday. I don’t mind saying that the taller one was nice looking.”

Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern, yes. With Kevin. Some visitors. They were about as compassionate as Kate. They must have practiced their good-cop-bad-cop routine before arriving, though she’d have imagined Danny as the hard-ass; Kevin, the patient listener. But then, maybe not. Kevin now detested her on principle it seemed. Come to that, was there anyone in the village who liked her besides Marcus?

What a lonely, useless thought, here in this sterile, foreign hospital with a nurse chattering on about how wonderful it was to have visitors.

The nurse emptied Merrit’s pee bag and announced that she was ready for the female medical ward on the first floor. One orderly wheeled in a chair while the other lifted her out of the bed. Merrit didn’t notice her surroundings again until a new, skinny nurse tucked her into a new bed. “There now. Better?”

High ceilings, Pepto Bismol colored walls, and floral curtains around the beds. “Better,” Merrit agreed.

The nurse with the pink lipstick peeked around the curtain. She handed Merrit a message slip. “Almost forgot that a phone call came in for you. I couldn’t make out everything but hopefully enough.”

Merrit read the note and struggled to sit up, only to fall back again, still too weak to be much use yet.